


Ash & Dust

by nasadog



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Doctor/Patient, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-06
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-04 12:18:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/710703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nasadog/pseuds/nasadog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Enjolras is a brilliant young doctor destined for great things, and Grantaire is an alcoholic whose future only stretches as far as the next hospital admittance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Metrology of a Biological Breakdown

_ MVC (fl) = [Hematocrit (per cent) x 10]/[RBC count 106/ uL)] _

Enjolras ran a hand through his hair. Gold and brown and every colour in-between threaded between splayed fingers. He knew the formula better than any other he had ever studied. It was at once his biggest fear and his most prevalent obsession. Dark eyes flickered over the empty bed before him, then back to the notebook in his hand: MCV: Megabolastic Anemia. He had only ever treated one patient for the dominating disease; a woman in her fifties, with silvering hair and a medicine cabinet brimming with antidepressants. She had survived leukemia, but her young son had not. The woman suffered a violent stroke when she was under Enjolras’ care, and died not long after. Enjolras was not particularly haunted by that patient, but the inability to _fix_ her was something he had since frequently tortured himself with.

A little light filtered into the dark room through a window. He was dimly bathed in silvery shades, eyes dark and unreadable. His shift was about to start, and there was a full moon; Enjolras did not believe in folklore, but it was fact that moonlit nights were the busiest at the hospital. _Lunatic_ was a well coined term. He inhaled the smell of disinfectant sharply and emptied his lungs in a drawn out sigh, closing his eyes for a brief moment before turning to the doorway. The ward remained blanketed in its comfortable darkness, and Enjolras stepped out into a hallway lit by harsh yellow-whites and cream checked walls.

Joly skipped past him with an overzealous grin for greeting. Enjolras tipped his head and returned a charming smile, but said nothing. They awaited the midnight rush in ominous silence, anticipating car accidents at first, but later… Well. They didn’t call these people lunatics for nothing. It said something that Joly – the hypochondriac, ironic as it was – was the only other doctor to be seen before the shift. There was an air of impending doom about the hospital, and Enjolras stared it down with nearly heroic avowal.

It was a minute before twelve when the first patient assigned to their shift was rushed in. She was sixteen and unconscious, in the recovery position on the emergency bed as she was rushed past Enjolras, her face white and shining, white-gold hair slick with sweat, her lips blue and eyelids red. Joly was running a commentary of symptoms and commands as he kept pace with her, and nurses broke away in every direction at his instruction. Enjolras took his cue, and positioned himself in the waiting room.

An old man fell down the stairs, dislocated a fake hip. That was Laigle’s department. 

A three year old broke his leg. Courfeyrac supervised paediatrics, so he stole the child away to a room with cartoons on the walls.

Enjolras busied himself, although nothing was his specialty. He fixed a splint onto a middle-aged woman’s leg and provided her with crutches. He instructed the intern, Gavroche, to x-ray the chest of a young man who had been in a motor accident, and told him to look for empyema – pleural effusion. Enjolras saw to a teenager who fainted at least four times during their short meeting, and an identical twin who was developing a mysterious mark which the other sibling was not. He injected a diabetic and took bood samples from ten more patients.

The sky was purple in preparation for dawn when the drunk walked in.

This was a man they had seen before. He had needed a gastric lavage – his stomach pumped. Enjolras hadn’t treated him then, but he faintly recognised him now. Of course, he wasn’t a misdirected youth anymore. No. Now, the man’s cheeks were flushed scarlet against a sheet white face, and turquoise fire burned with intoxication in both eyes. He clung to the automatic door, finally stumbling inside when it tried to close against him. Wild raven curls clung to his slick face, and he sought out the image of Enjolras in his white coat over blue scrubs across the room.

The man – who looked to be in his early twenties – pointed at Enjolras with splayed out fingers, as if trying to reach him.

“You’re… doctor.” His speech was slurred and strained.

Enjolras stepped slowly forwards, his gaze steady and careful. He knew better than to be thoughtless when a man was this unpredictable. “Yes. Do you need help?”

The man grinned and doubled over, his palms now heavy on bent knees. His knuckles would have been white, but since his skin was already the colour of the walking dead, they were a bruised yellow colour. He grinned beneath the tangle of hair that obscured his face, and laughed humourlessly. “I can’t… toes. Hands. Feel ‘em.” The man winced. “Oh. Felt… then. Fire.”

Enjolras was momentarily disarmed. He approached with a straight back and laid a hand on the man’s shoulder, pushing him gently into one of the chairs in the now-empty waiting room. “Stay there. I’m going to find you a bed.” His words were authoritative, but his stomach was churning. _Peripheral neuropathy_ leapt into his head and held on like a parasite. He caught Combeferre’s arm in a hallway, and learned that Ward N23 was unoccupied.

On the walk back, Enjolras thought through his instant fear of neuropathy. Extreme intoxication was often the cause for burning sensations and numbness in extremities, as well as loss of consciousness, which the young man had seemed close to.  Enjolras reasoned that the man in the waiting room most probably required therapy, and not medical attention, although he returned dutifully and wrapped an arm around his shoulder with the fluid ease of someone used to proximity with strangers.

“G’na take me to bed, doctor?” The young man mumbled, his head lolling as he shuffled alongside Enjolras. His words were either indecipherable or ignored.

The ward was close. Enjolras’ stride was sure and strong, and the dark curls of the other man brushed against the young doctor’s cheek as his head lolled in lazy circles, his neck obviously struggling to cope against all the alcohol in his brain. Enjolras sighed, silent beneath his breath, and continued his confident course towards the ward. He was avoided by the few nurses who passed, and Joly he knew would give this undiagnosed patient a wide berth until Enjolras was sure he had nothing infectious. They were alone together, and Enjolras would have to put up with the smell of melon vodka and hard whiskey coming from his left for a little while longer.

They reached the ward, and Enjolras swung around to lower the now silent man onto his bed, which creaked suspiciously (although it held, and Enjolras grunted quietly in begrudging content). He set about reaching for the blank chart at the bed’s foot, and had it in hand by the time the patient groaned at an obnoxious volume and fixed his eyes on Enjolras.

“What is your name?” Enjolras demanded, without looking up.

“Rar… Ar…” The drunk’s words were slurred, his tongue thick with alcohol and fatigue. He grinned, seemingly at his own inability to speak, before huffing and flinging a heavy arm across his face. “S’bright ‘n here…”

“I need to write your name on this chart.”

“It’s… Gran…taire.”

“Grantaire?” Enjolras lifted his brows, looking at the young man now, the tip of his pen pressed to the chart paper as it bled out in a watery black circle. The ink slowly metastasised, but Enjolras was too distracted to mind.

“Yuh. ‘S it.” Grantaire lifted his arm a little – just a little – to meet Enjolras’ eyes. Immediately, the doctor resumed his professional façade. 

“Hello, Grantaire. I’m Enjolras, and I’m your doctor for tonight. If you need anything, there’s a button right here,” Enjolras pointed to Grantaire’s right, making sure the other man was watching, “which will come through to this.” Enjolras twisted his hip around, to show Grantaire his pager. The dark-haired man nodded, and Enjolras turned to leave.

When he reached the doorway, a quiet voice said “thank-you” from behind him, words running together the way drunkenness demanded.

Enjolras left. He had business to attend to.


	2. Divine Intervention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Enjolras is a brilliant young doctor destined for great things, and Grantaire is an alcoholic whose future only stretches as far as the next hospital admittance.

Morning was obnoxiously intrusive against Grantaire’s eyes. It burned right through his lids, all fire-red and flares of orange. He was vaguely aware of his own groan. There was a vast amount of grey space within his brain, and he analysed it with faint curiosity, watching as questions began to form. Who was he? Where was he? Why did it smell so weird? The more he grasped at straws within his head, the more incapable he was of remembering the answers. Dejected, he decided the best course of action would be to actually open his eyes.

And _dear Lord,_ that was bright.

The immediate rush of knowledge he obtained from that simple act was almost overwhelming. Blinking against the clinical white of his environment, he became awash under a tidal wave of _fuck no Grantaire you absolute idiot Grantaire you’re going to get drunk oh Jesus you have to go to the hospital Grantaire don’t you dare pass out Grantaire--_

Maybe keeping his eyes closed would have been better.

Grantaire whimpered, clutching as fistfuls of cold white sheets as pain began to override confusion. His head, true to form, felt like it was going to explode. His eyes felt like they were melting, which wasn’t as common. His hands were a little numb, and his legs were alive with crawling sensations. He gasped in tiny breaths, and he could actually _feel_ his heart hammering against his chest.

_Don’t think about it, Grantaire. Don’t think about it._

He shut his eyes. It wasn’t his condition that scared him; Grantaire had woken up on the street feeling worse than this more times than he cared to remember. Grantaire was scared of the hospital. Of all the things for a clinical drunk to be nervous about…

“Grantaire?”

Goddamn. _Goddamn!_ Grantaire’s eyes flew open (he inwardly cursed at the burn that caused) and locked instantly upon a vision of dark gold hair and midnight blue eyes. He swallowed dryly, fisting at the sheets – which was pointless, since his fists were already full of material. He was an idiot.

“Are you… feeling okay?” The doctor was beautiful, but aside from his beauty, he looked _awful_. Wrecked, in fact. Those dark eyes were ringed by pink that didn’t belong there, and his lips were cracked and bitten. His shoulders sagged a little, although not obviously, and he leaned on the doorframe. Grantaire barely recognised him, but he _did_ recognise him, at least.

“Uh,” he began, before remembering not to stare. He corrected himself and stared at the doctor’s chest instead, realising that not staring altogether was downright impossible, and lifted a hand to pull absently at a curl below his ear. “Yeah, sorry, I, uh…” Grantaire trailed off, risking a glance back to the doctor’s face.

“You’re welcome.”

“Wh- what?”

“You thanked me last night. You’re welcome.”

“Oh. Uh. Okay.” Grantaire was dazed. He could just about hold himself together to wonder if they’d put him on anything while he was asleep. “Thanks for that, I guess.”

The doctor smirked. “You’re welcome.”

Grantaire swallowed again, and dragged his eyes towards his lap. “Right, yeah,” he murmured, wincing quietly as a sharp pain shot through his temple. “I don’t… remember your name.”

There was a long silence, and Grantaire couldn’t bring himself to look at the _honest to god Greek deity_ leaning in the doorway because he felt like he’d personally offended this work of art. Shit, Grantaire could write arias about the guy’s face, and he wasn’t even anywhere near at his finest. On that note, Grantaire really hoped they’d given him some kind of drug to justify the amount of ridiculous making itself comfortable in his head.

“My name is Enjolras. Don’t worry about the ‘doctor’ part. My name is long enough already.” When Grantaire looked up, Enjolras didn’t look offended. He looked _relieved_. Huh.

“Don’t you have a first name? It’d feel weird without the title, like I’m some kind of army squadron leader, or… game coach… or something.”

Enjolras’ lips twitched into something that could have been the slightest hint at a smile. “Nobody has used my first name since I was knee-high.”

“Oh.” And Grantaire really wanted to hear the backstory to that little anecdote. He _really did._ But he couldn’t ask. That was his doctor, standing over there. His doctor. He was Enjolras’ patient. Grantaire pulled at his curls again, aware he had resumed staring. 

Enjolras was unfazed. Of course he bloody was. _He must get stared at all the time._

“You’re really pretty.” Wait. Did that just happen, or…?

Enjolras had been startled, and was now staring at Grantaire levelly with his darkened gaze. Yeah, that happened.

“Shit. I mean, uh, I… Did they give me something? Did you-? I didn’t mean that- you, uh, I’m sorry. Sorry.” Grantaire brought his hands to his face, pulling wires everywhere, and dragged them down to look at Enjolras, who was now advancing towards him.

The doctor was smiling to himself, not meeting Grantaire’s gaze. “I’m going to lower your morphine dosage, since you seem to be doing well. Technically my shift ended ten minutes ago, but…” He altered something attached to a tube that was attached to Grantaire’s arm - _oh_ \- and then stilled there, as if he were deciding on something. Decision or none, after a moment Enjolras turned his head to fix Grantaire with serious regard, and it was all Grantaire could do not to freeze up completely. “Try not to drink as much, Grantaire.”

Grantaire scoffed automatically. “S’easy for you to say.”

He didn’t catch Enjolras’ troubled expression, but he went rigid at the light brush of hot fingers upon his bare arm. “It’s not the first time you’ve been admitted here.”

“Hospitals scare the shit out of me,” he muttered, although it lacked feeling. Enjolras stunned him. How could Grantaire possibly feel fear in his presence?

“Then maybe you shouldn’t drink yourself through the doors.” Enjolras’ words were harsher now, and he withdrew his hand. “You’re worth more than that.”

“No-one else seems to think so.”

“That doesn’t matter. Listen to me. I am your doctor, and if you’ve got no-one else then maybe I’ll find you once you leave and give you a kitten or something. You need to _stop_.”

Grantaire felt a thousand responses, all too vicious, fly through his brain and vanish in a split second. He couldn’t say anything to this man. Enjolras was fire and ice and beauty, and if it had been anyone else Grantaire might have wanted to cut him down, but now he found himself desperately wanting to see the eagle soar. “Yeah, fine,” he choked out, but Enjolras was already turning to leave. “Wait!”

Enjolras whirled around, eyes full of impatience. “My shift’s over. What is it, Grantaire?”

Whatever Grantaire had been going to say died on the tip of his tongue. “Uh… When will I be able to leave?”

“If you’ve got feeling in your extremities? Very soon. We need the beds.” Enjolras made to leave again.

“Wait.” Grantaire fumbled with the sheets in his lap, flexing his toes experimentally. “Were you serious about the kitten?”

“Maybe.” He heard the smile in Enjolras’ voice.

Grantaire wrapped his head around the idea, and looked up, content. Enjolras was gone.


	3. Inevitable Recrudescence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Grantaire kindles his fanaticism, Enjolras is busy and Eponine has a flower shop.

It was before Enjolras’ next shift that Grantaire was evicted. He had no visitors, but the receptionist handed him his wallet and phone in a clear bag and he felt connected to the world again; he had three missed calls from Eponine, and a text:

_you better not have died, idiot._

He snorted and typed a response confirming his state of alive-ness, before glancing around the waiting area in the hospital. He had been stalling, hoping to see Enjolras again, although he wasn’t really sure what for. To thank him? To try and fabricate some sort of tenuous relationship? It was ridiculous. Grantaire was a jobless (and quite often homeless) drunk. Enjolras was a doctor, shining and golden and filling every second with saving people’s lives. Their worlds could never mesh. They would never have even a friendship, never mind… whatever it was that Grantaire wanted (and he wasn’t sure what that was, because Enjolras was enrapturing, and Grantaire was 500% certain he – Icarus – could not stand in Apollo’s presence for very long at all without falling into oblivion).

Eponine’s text vibrated through his fingers, and he was snapped out of his reverie.

_youre such an idiot. im serious, youre lucky i love you. where are u now? x_

_hospital  
x_

_get ur ass out of there! before i come and drag u away. x_

_seriously are u ok i know u hate hospitals why are u hanging around_

_r!_

_would u believe me if i told u there is a really hot doctor  
x_

_not for a second._

_wait…………… is there!?! x_

_i'll call u later  
x_

He would call her later. He absolutely would. Eponine was a gift, and he really would be an idiot to let her slip through his fingers. Really, she was the only solid he had. He knew full well he needed to stop betraying her trust like this, ending up in different hospitals every other week, frightening her half to death. He’d chew on that thought for a while. For now, he could linger.

Grantaire lingered for minute after minute, hour after hour, whiling away the time in the tiny café in the waiting area or just flicking mindlessly through magazines. People came and went, patients mostly.

And then there was Enjolras.

He walked straight past.

Grantaire rose from his seat like a fury, lightning quick as he reached out to snag Enjolras’ denim sleeve with his fingers (he hadn’t changed into scrubs just yet). Enjolras faltered and turned, eyes falling upon Grantaire as his lips parted just a little in recognition, although confused eyebrows drew together in a frown.

“What are you doing-?”

“I’m sorry. I- I’m sorry. God. What _am_ I doing?” Grantaire continued to mumble apologies as he released Enjolras’ sleeve, forcing reluctant fingers to uncurl around the sturdy fabric. “I just… I waited. I didn’t know when your next shift was or if I’d ever see you again and I like how you don’t treat me as if I’m worthless even though you’re probably only doing your job and you said you’d get me a kitten and people don’t just _say_ that and you were right, you know, when you guessed that I didn’t have anyone, and oh my god I’ve been talking and you’re just standing there _looking_ at me I’m going to shut up, I’m so fucking sorry…”

Enjolras watched as Grantaire’s eyes fell, ashamed, to the ground.

There was a long silence, and Grantaire imagined the halo of gold and brown around Enjolras’ head where he was too tired to style it properly, and his eyes: judgemental, or maybe pitying, or maybe amused. Grantaire wasn’t sure which would be worse.

“You keep saying that,” came Enjolras’ calm voice, pushing aside the silence as if it had never existed.

Grantaire’s head rose and he lifted a hand to rub at this nape, twisting a finger tight through the curls that curtained his neck. “What?”

“That you’re sorry.” Enjolras’ expression was not as soft as his voice. He seemed guarded. “Why are you sorry?”

Grantaire stood, agog, for a moment. Why _was_ he sorry? He was always the one at fault, he supposed. It was the way the world worked. He was a mess, and he was the wandering addict who was too cynical to quit and too hopeful to die. He got in the way. It was his place in the scheme of things. He gaped, before settling for a noncommittal shrug. “Dunno.”

“Please don’t apologise.” A request from Enjolras was as good as a command.

“Okay,” Grantaire breathed, resisting the urge to add ‘sorry’. And then what? He stood there quietly, pulling at his curls in the presence of this golden beacon, averting his eyes as if to shield them from the sun.

“I have to work,” Enjolras quickly declared, straightening. He held out his hand to shake, which Grantaire grasped weakly, and glanced around with those dark eyes as if he were suspicious. “Uh, Grantaire. You waited all day?”

No confirmation necessary.

“Right. Okay.” Enjolras paused. He seemed to be thinking, a theory which was confirmed when he reached an internal decision and fished a Nokia from the early 2000s out of his pocket. Enjolras thrust it towards Grantaire, raising his brows. “Take it. I keep a few for emergencies. It’s got my number on it, and the hospital’s. Send me a text and I’ll catch up with you, okay? I really have to go…”

Grantaire nodded dumbly, taking the phone and turning it over and over in his palms as if it were dull grey treasure.

Enjolras was gone when he looked up.

Grantaire took out his own phone – shamefully modern compared to his gift from Enjolras – and called Eponine. She demanded him at her workplace immediately, so he set off, obedient as always.

Eponine worked behind the counter at a flower shop called the Musain. She had been a student of agriculture and husbandry, until her love of the domestic took over and she found herself a co-owner for this dream place in the guise of a whimsical poet called Jean Prouvaire. Prouvaire was loaded with money, to put it lightly, and was more than happy to let Eponine run things her way as long as he could write sonnets in the corner all day long. The two of them formed a happy if unlikely coalition. Grantaire enjoyed the short amounts of time he spent there, although he never did stay long for one reason or another. C’est la vie, as the French may or may not say.

The walk to the Musain would be long. Grantaire stopped for whisky on the way there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woah so this is short but i needed to get it out of the way 
> 
> lots of love to [justine](frenjolras.tumblr.com) who made a [beautiful photoset](http://frenjolras.tumblr.com/post/43837822887/e-r-au-doctor-patient-you-need-to-stop-i) for this au 
> 
> disclaimer: enjolras is gonna get a lot more hot-headed in days to come, so stick with me on this whole ~gentle and kind~ thing 

**Author's Note:**

> oh my gosh this took forever i am so sorry 
> 
> lots of love to [justine](frenjolras.tumblr.com) who made a [beautiful photoset](http://frenjolras.tumblr.com/post/43837822887/e-r-au-doctor-patient-you-need-to-stop-i) for this au 


End file.
